Sheldon Baboolal class 531 Amazon rainforest

Table of contents

Introduction............Page 1

Let me tell you about the Amazon Rainforest Ecosystem. It is the largest rainforest in the world. The AmazonRrainforest is a hot tropical paradise, with an average temperature of 82 degress and u to 260 inches of rainfall a year. The Amazon Rainforest has hundreds of exoctic trees and plants and animals.It’s located in the western hemisphere in South America and borders nine countries includingBrazil, Peru, Columbia, Venezuela, Equador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana.

FUN FACT 1.Around 80% of the food we eat originally came from rainforests. Some of the more popular examples include coffee, chocolate, rice, tomatoes, potatoes, bananas, black pepper, pineapples and corn.2.Tropical rainforests only cover about 6% of the Earth’s surface, but they are home to more than half the world’s total plant and animal species.3The forest floor is almost completely dark – with less that 1% of the available sunlight making it through the tree canopy above.4 There are around 3000 fruits found in rainforests, and in the west we make use of around 200 of them. However, indigenous tribes make use of over 2000.5The rainforests have begun to be destroyed in the last 100 years to make way for farm land. Today, the rainforests are being destroyed by 1.5 acres every second. That’s not a typo.

animals-To date, at least 40,000 plant species, 427 mammals (e.g. jaguar, anteater and giant otter), 1,300 birds (e.g. harpy eagle, toucan and hoatzin), 378 reptiles (e.g. boa), more than 400 amphibians (e.g. dart poison frog) and around 3,000 freshwater fishes1 including the piranha have been found in the Well, consider life in the Arctic. You are subject to intense climatic conditions (very cold, often windy), food is scarce, and places to hide from predators are hard to find - clearly not the best environment for wildlife to thrive.

Now contrast that to the tropics, where the climate is warm (but liveable), prey is plentiful and there are many ecosystems where wildlife can live.

Over time, these factors have made it possible for species to adapt to different conditions and develop habitat specializations, resulting in the vast species richness of places such as the Amazon Basin..With the wet season behind them, Amazon wildlife such as monkeys, cats, iguanas and various lizards abandon deciduous trees (shed their leaves seasonally), which no longer have leaves, and relocate to riverine gallery forests, where there are still leaves4.